More than 20 Cllarksville School district staff and faculty will served as armed security guards, trained to respond to a potential active-shooter incident at school.

The program, which the Clarksville School Board approved in May. It will put several armed guards at each of the district’s five campuses. The program is part of an security enhancement at the school district that includes upgrading cameras, push-button access to buildings and more.

Arkansas law prohibits guns on kindergarten through 12th-grade campuses unless they are possessed by certified law enforcement officers. Training the volunteers as commissioned security guards meets the requirements of the law, school district officials have said.

The guards are not intended to take the place of police response, but it could take a few minutes for police officers to arrive, and the guards will already be there.

The volunteers include Clarksville administrators, teachers, secretaries and janitors.

The volunteer guards received 54 hours of custom police-style training.

They underwent three courses of fire training, one of them the same as that given to law enforcement officers. They underwent low-light shooting training and dynamic target training in which the targets moved about and the guards had to determine who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.

They also underwent force-on-force training on the Clarksville campus, using Air Soft pistols and bringing in some of their children to play roles in several training scenarios.

The commissioned guards practice every other month, and they will undergo a refresher course annually.